He Will Never Hear the End of This
by mage-cat
Summary: The events of my story "I'll Never Hear the End of This" told from Katana's perspective. Beginnings of Brooklyn/Katana. Rated for moderate drunken swearing. Please review.


He Will Never Hear the End of This

As Katana walked around the festival, she noticed several of her rookery siblings were missing. She frowned as she remembered where they were. They had decided to play a new game "Find out what the Timedancer is like when he is drunk." Brooklyn-san had made the mistake of admitting that, at the age of 45, he had never had sake. While he had then blustered about several forms of alcohol he had drank, some of the others had still decided to use the earliest available opportunity, namely tonight, to show him just how potent their native brew was.

They were easy enough to find. Even a large festival in Ishimura had only so much ground to cover, and a group of drinking _tengu_ tend to make a great deal of noise. The Timedancer's unusual appearance merely simplified the matter, as his snow-white hair stood out amongst the universally dark hair of the Ishimuran population.

In unguarded moments Katana would admit to herself, and only herself, that Brooklyn-san's striking looks were quite handsome. The curve of his beak, his coloring unlike that of any _tengu_ she had seen before stuck in her mind in a most pleasant way. And that annoyed her, for he was also intolerably rude and forward, constantly dropping honorifics and completely unable to read the air. Her rookery sisters often teased her for her lack of interest in the clan's males and the fact that this _gaijin_ was the first to… no. She couldn't bring herself to even think it. Out loud, the most she could bring herself to do was admit that he was a skilled tactician and warrior.

When she found the group, it seemed the drinking was already well underway. Brooklyn-san was flirting with Mizu and Sakura when he caught sight of her. He stood up, perhaps a bit less steadily than usual, to greet her, "Ah, Katana-san," he was sober enough to remember how she reacted when he got too familiar. "It is wonderful to see you grace us with your being here tonight." Katana cocked an eyebrow ridge. He was certainly in a good mood. "Will you be joining us in the sake, too? If you don't cut lose now and then, that dower expression is going to stick and ruin your lovely face."

_Of all the…_ Too furious to form a complete thought, she slapped him and stalked off, vaguely hearing him mutter something about his luck with females. Several minutes later, her rookery brother Rin, bulky and green-skinned, found her.

"Katana-chan, you have turned our amorous drunk into a morose one. Ever since you left, he has been detailing every rookery sister of his that turned him down. After a few more cups of sake that is."

"And what do you want me to do about it, Rin-kun."

"Come and listen! It's a hoot! He was starting on the forth one when I left."

Katana allowed her much larger rookery brother to pull her back to the drinking party. It seemed that they arrived just as his tale became less amusing.

Brooklyn-san sat at the table still holding the sake cup, "Of course, they all ended up the same in the end. Killed in the massacre. The whole clan was except Demona, who ran off, and the six of us who ended up in stone sleep for a thousand years. My first timedance brought me back there three years later. No one had been left to perform a Wind Ceremony, so they were all still there like so much rubble. Everyone. From the elder to the youngest hatchlings. Damn, I'm not drunk enough for this." He drank several more cups of sake.

He moved forward with his tale, a bit more slurred than before, but still coherent, "And my love life certainly didn't improve in Manhattan. We wake up and we're told we're the only gargoyles left in the world and the six of us are all males, including the beast. Then we find out Demona survived. Then we find out she's a homicidal maniac.

"When I saw Maggie, it was a ray of hope. I think I honestly thought I was in love at the time. Now I realize that what I was was horny. Understandable since Demona was the only female I had seen in nearly a year by then. Of course Maggie wasn't a gargoyle, she was a mutate." At this statement he seemed to remember his audience, who were looking at him as if they were wondering if he was drunker than they thought. "A… a human… changed into something almost, but not really, a gargoyle." As this seemed to satisfy the crowd enough, he continued, "Three men were changed to. She fell in love with Talon, a worthy man to lose to. She was pregnant with his kid when I left. She's better off."

He downed another cup, "Angela's better off too. She showed up almost a year after I met Maggie. Six months after I had given up on her. Damn if I wasn't still horny, and it was a real gargoyle this time. Made a damn fool out of myself, but she could tell Broadway was the one who wanted her, not just any female. But hell, hope springs eternal. With Angela came the news that we weren't really the last."

He slowly sipped at another cup before continuing, "Then Demona goes and has clones made of us, imperfect copies. Almost our bodies, but not our minds. Don't know a damn thing but to obey her partner. Then her partner has a clone of mostly her made, Delilah. Made her a bit smarter than the others, too. Thought about going after her for all of a night before I see her with her arm around Malibu. My clone! The guy that's basically me minus the ability to form a coherent sentence!"

He then downed one more cup of sake before rising to his feet, pointing upwards yelling "And then that damn phoenix came into my life!" At this point, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor.

"Is he alright?" Katana asked Rin, who had been the first to reach the fallen _tengu_.

"Just dead drunk. Nothing a day of sleep can't fix. He probably shouldn't have stood up so quickly."

Rin and another one of the males who had made up the drinking party then carried Brooklyn off to where he would be left alone until the next sunset, sunrise still a few hours away. Katana left the festival grounds to the rock garden on the grounds of the Zen Buddhist temple in the village. While gargoyles had little use for human religions in general, she did find the garden a good place to think.

She glided to a large, flat rock in the midst of the garden and knelt there, turning what she had heard over in her mind. Since she had met Brooklyn-san, she had hated his forwardness and his boisterous behavior. Tonight, she had heard the history of a warrior in pain. To lose almost an entire clan, to spend almost two years believing they were the last tengu left on Earth, it was unthinkable. He must have had a far greater inner discipline than she had given him credit for. Such loss would have broken a lesser warrior. While she still did not approve of his behavior, she decided that she would endeavor to be more understanding of it.

That day, her dreams were haunted by the image of the Timedancer slumped over the table, his head hung. With the image came the feeling of sadness and pity that comes from seeing something noble laid low.

After awakening at sunset and a quick trip to the kitchens, she made her way, a cup of bitter liquid in hand, to where Brooklyn-san had spent the day, to find the red beaked tengu looking rather miserable and Rin looking far too amused. "Good evening Rin-kun, Brooklyn-san."

"'Lo, Katana-san," the Timedancer muttered, holding his head.

She thrust the cup into his free hand. "This is the clan's hangover remedy. After your performance last night, I am sure you need it." She walked away before he could say anything. Even if he had his reasons for the way he acted, she still didn't want him getting any wrong ideas.

**Author's notes: In Japanese "kuuki yomenai" which translates as "can't read the air" means being unable to understand social situations without having them explained. This inability is commonly found among people living in Japan who were not raised there.**

**This is my first try at Katana's perspective. As far as I can tell, it's the first time **_**anyone**_** has tried to write from Katana's perspective. From what Greg has told us about Katana, how do who think I did? I love feedback!**


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